ICS Stories

Los Angeles Unified students grade district's new menu choices

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:00:00 GMT

It's a reform effort years in the making in the nation's second-largest school system. Only this one is being carried out around a group of tables at the district's massive kitchen, where the executive chef is serving his latest creations to several dozen teenagers.

On a recent day, student food critics from East Los Angeles sit in judgment, circling thumbs-up or thumbs-down and writing comments on the new menu choices.

Hummus with whole-wheat pita, a farmers market salad and vegetable tamales? Thumbs up.

Ancho chile chicken on noodles and a quinoa salad? Thumbs down.

Israel Morales, a Garfield High School junior, samples a spoonful of pozole, the hominy stew, made with chicken.

"It was great, one of the best ones I've had," he said.

The effort is aimed at remaking cafeteria food in the Los Angeles Unified School District. In coming weeks, the district will do away with canned and frozen fruits and vegetables, chicken nuggets and corn dogs and begin incorporating more locally grown produce into the daily fare.

The L.A. school district has become a leader in the movement to improve school food, beginning with the landmark decision in 2004 to ban soda sales on campuses and, more recently, removing chocolate and strawberry milk from the menu. Television chef Jamie Oliver, who criticized the district for not opening its doors to his cameras a few months ago, was among those calling for the flavored milk ban.

Now, districts across the country are embracing similar efforts. In Fresno, the school district is considering the flavored milk ban, and smaller school systems are preparing much of their cafeteria food from scratch.

Over many months, the district has been bringing in students like Israel and others from a variety of schools and grade levels for taste tests at the Newman Center, near downtown, where 225,000 meals are prepared daily and shipped to campuses. For the recent tasting, about 50 students and some parents were served by the district's executive chef, Mark Baida.

Students have rejected some items. The meatloaf, for example, will not appear in cafeterias. But Greek salad and roast chicken will. Ditto for tostada salad that includes shredded cabbage, tortilla strips, corn, beans and cheese.

"The sauce has a really good flavor," Angel Medina, a Lincoln High School senior, said of the tortilla salad.

"It doesn't look like school food. It doesn't look greasy," said Josselyn Perez, a Garfield High sophomore.

David Binkle, the deputy director of food services, told the students to take the testing seriously: "We want to make sure you like the food, because there's no sense in throwing it in the garbage."

Between spoonfuls, the students took bites of crackers and sipped bottled water to clear their palates.

"It's going to be a drastic change," said Erika Jimenez, a junior at Roosevelt High School. "People are ready for this."

She and her peers were well-versed in food and nutrition, asking such questions as whether the edamame were genetically modified (no, Binkle said). Will they be serving almond milk? (No.)

L.A. Unified feeds 650,000 meals a day, 80% of them to students who qualify for free or reduced-price breakfast and lunch. It's these students, advocates say, who rely on school food for most of their daily nutrition and who are at risk of obesity and related diseases.

The district has been negotiating with food contractors for fewer processed products. It is working with fewer companies too, giving L.A. Unified more buying power. The district has found some savings: The packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that won't be on the menu this year were available from relatively few companies, so they could charge higher prices.

"What we laid out for these companies was: Anything you sell for school lunch, we don't want any of it," said Binkle. "We want restaurant-quality food."

L.A. Unified also is using only bone-in chicken — rather than paying for a processor to turn it into nuggets and other items, said Baida. District officials are talking to Weiser Family Farms and McGrath Family Farm, which supply some of L.A.'s top restaurants.

"We really want to pull as many people into the conversation as we can. How can we do it better as a community? Everyone can help us," Binkle said.

"This is my 17th year in school food, and this is the biggest thing I've seen," said Sean Leer, a vice president at Gold Star Foods, which supplies L.A. Unified and provides private-label foods to retail outlets.

Leer grinned ear-to-ear as he told students at the Newman Center recently that the oranges he handed out were picked from 100-year-old trees in Redlands.

Students will notice right away that the bowls holding many of the new dishes look somewhat like those sold at supermarkets. Salads, for example, have the greens on the bottom, topped with a lightweight tray holding dressing and beans, cheese and other items.

Healthful food, however, costs money. For the 2010-11 year, the district has a food budget of about 95 cents per meal, up from last year because of cost-of-living increases and savings in other parts of the food division. Of its $120-million food budget, about $18 million will go to fresh produce, Binkle said.

L.A. Unified also is making changes to reduce calorie counts and sodium and to increase fruits and vegetables in anticipation of regulations expected next summer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs school meal programs.

The school board is also likely to consider an updated nutrition policy this fall. Flavored waters could be one target; their sugar total "far exceeds what the superintendent wants," said Rick Boull't, the district's interim chief operating officer.

Supt. John Deasy has said he wants to make better nutrition a priority; he encouraged the board to ban the flavored milk.

Next up will be a look at the use of paper and plastic and whether the district can increase cooking from scratch in schools in a way that's equitable for all students. Half the schools have no kitchens, others have old, inoperable equipment, Binkle said.

All of this doesn't mean, however, that students can't find unhealthful things to eat. Officials and students acknowledge there's a vibrant underground market, with junk food carried onto campuses and sold by enterprising students and even some teachers.

High school campus vending machines and student stores also carry baked chips, granola bars and sports drinks, meals for some students.

Maria Leon, a mother of two students, attended the recent tasting session and said the district needs to improve all aspects of its food operation. Some students said the cafeterias run out of the best choices or the lines are too long. Others said the food is sometimes cold or overcooked. Several complained that they don't get enough time to get through the lunch line and eat; high school lunch periods are 30 minutes or less, officials say.

It's important for the district to get things right, said Matt Sharp, a senior advocate at the California Food Policy Advocates. "If the move to plain milk and the new menu the district is implementing don't work, there's a danger LAUSD would be back to all nuggets all the time. That would be a shame."

Defienden fondos para sus estudios

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 07:00:00 GMT

Aunque la mayoría de los alumnos de la secundaria Lincoln de Los Ángeles considera proseguir la educación superior cuando terminen la escuela, la realidad es otra bien distinta: apenas unos 150 estudiantes por cada 500 que se gradúan continúan formándose, según el director del plantel, José Torres.

Mientras varios factores desencadenan que un alto número no continúe con sus sueños, la falta de fondos y los recortes que enfrentan tanto escuelas como universidades comienzan a ser motivo de inquietud para muchos cuando se ponen a pensar en su propio futuro.

"Quiero ir al colegio, pero estoy viendo que no es fácil lograr lo que uno quiere en la vida", comenta Alexis Cruz, quien ha solicitado cupo en Cal State Northridge para cursar psicología el próximo curso. "Me preocupa mucho todo lo que pasa en el gobierno, de que no haya fondos y me vaya a tomar más tiempo completar las clases".

Esa preocupación se ha traducido en acción. Junto a decenas de estudiantes más de la misma escuela, Cruz ha tomado la iniciativa de defender su causa como estudiante para hacerse escuchar entre las esferas políticas a través de diversos actos y manifestaciones, pero también convenciendo a otros alumnos de que la batalla por educarse no está perdida.

"Ahora es cuando tenemos que estar más motivados", dijo Iliana Ávila, quien al igual que Cruz es miembro de Estudiantes Unidos, un colectivo de alumnos con raíces en varias escuelas del Este de Los Ángeles que se movilizan para defender sus derechos y asegurar fondos.

"No importa qué tan difícil se ponga la situación o cuántos recortes haya, lo que tenemos que dejar saber a los demás estudiantes es que eso no puede impedir que vayan a la universidad, y que no tienen razón para desanimarse", agregó Ávila.

Durante el tiempo de almuerzo de ayer en la escuela, varios alumnos identificados con camisetas de la organización fueron preguntando a otros compañeros sus intereses y preocupaciones cuando concluyan la secundaria. El objetivo: unir fuerzas y asesorar a quienes no saben por dónde empezar a buscar ayuda para dar el primer paso a la universidad.

Varias instituciones académicas se dieron además cita para responder a las preguntas del alumnado sobre cómo solicitar admisión en los campus universitarios y qué carreras profesionales se ofrecen.

"Muchos ni siquiera saben que cuanto mejor sean sus calificaciones en las materias, más dinero pueden conseguir cuando soliciten ayuda financiera", indicó Diana Cárdenas, consejera que prepara a los alumnos de cara a la educación superior. "Y lo que es más importante, solicitarlo a tiempo para asegurarse que tendrán esa ayuda".

Otros ochos consejeros trabajan en la escuela Lincoln, cuatro de ellos pagados con fondos de la Ley de Inversión en la Calidad de la Educación (QEIA). Pero el plantel podría dejar de recibir parte de ese dinero si no alcanza el nivel exigido de desempeño académico en las pruebas estatales.

"El poco dinero que tenemos hay que estirarlo para aprovecharlo lo mejor que podemos", expresó Torres, el director, luego de que su escuela ha experimentado entre 10% y 20% de recortes en los últimos cinco años. "Ahora nos ponemos dos o tres sombreros para hacer más con menos".

"Aun así hemos optado por poner más consejeros con ese dinero [de los fondos QEIA] porque el estudiante necesita una personalización", agregó. "Los estudiantes miran las noticias igual que nosotros, y se quedan pensando qué probabilidad tienen de seguir estudiando cuando están escuchando que hay recortes por todas partes".

Con unos 2,180 estudiantes, la secundaria Lincoln bien podría reflejar el mismo escenario que se vive en muchos otros planteles del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD): una escuela donde la mayoría de sus alumnos son hispanos (83%) y el 95% del total califica para almuerzo y desayuno gratis o a bajo precio porque sus familias no ganan lo suficiente.

Para Karen García, quien este curso terminará la secundaria, uno de los temores es "empezar la universidad y no seguir mis clases porque no haya fondos". Sabe que no tendrá más remedio que buscar un trabajo cuando llegue el verano para ahorrar con el fin de costearse la educación superior.

"Mis padres no ganan mucho para poderla pagar y yo no califico para ayuda financiera", dijo esta alumna indocumentada, a quien le gustaría estudiar desarrollo infantil para trabajar con niños.

Ángel Medina en cambio tiene un año más para tomar una decisión. De momento, está indeciso entre si enrolarse con los Marines o estudiar leyes.

"Hay muchas leyes malas que están afectando a la educación", dijo el alumno del grado 11. "Me gustaría hacer algo para cambiar eso, porque si recortan maestros, los estudiantes tienen menos empuje y es más fácil abandonar la escuela".

Un total de 14 maestros de los 110 que trabajan en la escuela Lincoln han recibido notificación de posible despido por parte de LAUSD ante la falta de presupuesto.

"Estos estudiantes son los profesionales del futuro. Tienen que conocer qué carreras pueden hacer, y tienen que conocer mundo, más allá de Lincoln Heights y de terminar trabajando en la tienda de la esquina", apuntó Gilberto Martínez, maestro de historia desde hace cinco años, y uno de los que ha recibido la notificación. "Pero para eso necesitan a los maestros. Yo he llegado a donde estoy porque un maestro me inspiró a mí, y estoy seguro que todo el mundo se acuerda de cuál fue su mejor maestro, el que hizo una diferencia en su vida".

Algunos estudiantes tienen claro que quieren seguir esa misma profesión. Lizbeth García, del grado 11, quisiera ser maestra de inglés.

"Sé que va a ser difícil, cada vez se necesita más ayuda porque peligran muchos programas", comentó la alumna. "Pero eso es lo que me motiva más para alcanzar mi meta".

No More Looking Back: New Torres High Open to the Future

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Over 2,000 students this week sat for the first time in classrooms at Esteban E. Torres High School—realizing an opportunity fought for by generations of East Los Angeles residents.

For some, the first day of school at the brand new campus signals an end to decades of dilapidated facilities, overcrowding, and low-expectations on the Eastside. The school makes history as the first built in unincorporated East Los Angeles in 85 years, and the first new school on the eastside to open with pilot schools approved under the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Public School Choice Initiative.

High school junior, Sintia Garcia, told EGP that she is both excited and nervous to be attending Torres High.

“…The best part is that I will be the first in my family to graduate from Torres High School as part of the senior class of 2012, representing the struggle for a better education in our communities,” she wrote in an email.

For Maria Leon, Torres’ opening day represented more than just a promising future for her children, it also marked a decade of struggle as an activist parent.

“It is like a dream, because we fought for 10 years,” Leon told EGP, speaking in Spanish. “I remember when we started, when we were negotiating with the homeowners here, then the construction delays with the Los Angeles Unified School District… we campaigned to get the construction moving… and then campaigned to get the pilot schools,” she said.

Leon’s daughter, Myra Alvarado, is a sophomore at the new Humanitas Pilot School and aspires to be a lawyer or doctor.

While the school’s opening offers hope to college-bound students in the form of rigorous academic preparation, Leon says it will also provide more opportunities for parent empowerment and school accountability, something she says has been lacking during her 26 years living on the eastside.

As a campus under the Public School Choice process—an LAUSD reform that allows outside education agencies to run schools with low student achievement and graduations rates, as well as at all new campuses—the performance and progress of Torres’ pilot school students and teachers will be carefully monitored. If the school fails to meet required benchmarks, measures will be taken to identify and correct the problem, according to Rachel Bonkovsky, School Improvement Policy and Program Development Advisor for the Office of the Superintendent.

The Esteban E. Torres ‘Home of the Toros’ is composed of five pilot schools: East Los Angeles Renaissance Academy; Humanitas Academy of Art & Technology; Leadership Academy; East Los Angeles Performing Arts Academy, and the Engineering & Technology Academy. Each pilot school has enrolled approximately 400 freshmen, sophomore and juniors.

Retired Congressman Esteban E. Torres, for whom the new school is named, advocated with InnerCity Struggles and the East Los Angeles Education Collaborative for pilot schools at his eastside namesake.

On opening day, Torres told students to treat the campus as if it were their own home: keep it clean, graffiti free, drug free and gang free, he said.

“Eleventh grade students, you will be the first graduating class. There will be no drop-outs! Graduate! Graduate and then go on to a college education,” he said. “You and those that will follow are the future for a better tomorrow for East LA, for California, and America.”

Torres told EGP that he felt like it was his first day of school. “I’m so honored and humbled by this great achievement that is taking place here on the eastside. It’s really a symbol of what a united community can accomplish,” he said.

According to InnerCity Struggles’ Maria Brenes, the high school opens after a decade of petitions drives, protest marches, community education efforts, and parent mobilizations to demand a new high school be built on the eastside.

“This victory actually fulfills one of the demands in the original 1968 student movement: A school that prepares all students for college,” she said during the opening day assembly. “So this school represents a legacy of struggle that started with the work of Congress member, Esteban E. Torres. He was a labor organizer, a veteran, a US ambassador, a founder of TELACU, and a congressman for this community.

Know that we are inspired by him, and he is a true hero, not just for Los Angeles but for this entire country, and our school is named after him.”

LAUSD School Board President Mónica García encouraged students to dream and to work hard to achieve those dreams.

School Board Member Yolie Flores, in whose district Torres High is located, put the opening day celebration in context for the students:

“I know that in our community we face obstacles and challenges all the time. I know because my family is very much probably like your family,” said Flores, the sponsor of the Public School Choice resolution. “My parents didn’t speak English, they had very-low wage jobs… I ask you to ask for help when the obstacles confront you. I want you to always think, in your mind, that walking out is not an option.”

Flores said that she, and everyone else at the school would do whatever it takes to make sure the students have everything they need to graduate, go to college, and succeed in their careers.

“I know it is tough, but there is nothing more important to all of us here today, than to see you succeed… you represent so much, not only for yourself, your own dignity, your own… great life, but for the history of this community, for your parents, and really for this world. We need brilliant people like you… Count on us! If you don’t see the best in this school, let us know,” she said.

“Come every day, work hard, think about the future you want. Expect it, demand it and get it.”

Concerns over A-G

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 07:00:00 GMT

The A-G courses—15 essential courses with more rigorous academic content required for admission to four-year institution are not yet reaching the numbers of students they should. That is why some parents have justified fears that the schools will not be ready when this becomes the required curriculum in 2012.

In 2005, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board approved a resolution to expand access to these elective courses—especially in low-income neighborhoods —as part of the process to eventually make them requirements two years later. A 2008 internal audit indicated discouraging news about the progress of the A-G courses. Three years after the initial decision was made, there still was no clear budget for implementation or a plan to publicize the importance of these courses.

An informal survey conducted this year in East Los Angeles high schools by parents and their supporters, showed little progress in the promotion of A-G courses or in the number of students passing them. The students’ lack of awareness of these courses remains one of the obstacles.

Parents have reason to be concerned that the excellent idea to properly prepare all LAUSD graduates for university education from 2012 on will be another exercise in frustration. School authorities have time to meet this goal of producing graduates with a solid academic foundation. We hope they take advantage of it.

Sin cursos para la universidad

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Un 92.5% de los estudiantes de secundaria del Este de Los Ángeles quiere asistir a una universidad de cuatro años. Pero sólo un 27% se gradúa habiendo superado los cursos A-G -15 asignaturas esenciales con contenidos más rigurosos-, necesarios para poder acceder a este tipo de instituciones.

"Que los cursos existan no es suficiente. Hay que conseguir que los tomen y aprueben", dice Henry Pérez, director interino de la organización La lucha del pueblo, basando sus datos en una encuesta realizada entre enero y junio de este año.

La organización planteó ayer sus preocupaciones ante la Junta del Distrito Escolar Unificado de Los Ángeles (LAUSD), expresando sus dudas sobre que el mismo esté haciendo todo lo posible por difundir los cursos y ayudar a que los chicos los superen.

Pérez señala que cuando se cumple el quinto año desde que LAUSD adoptara la resolución estableciendo la incorporación gradual en el curriculum de estos cursos, se ha hecho algún progreso, pero no el suficiente.

Según la resolución adoptada en 2005, para 2012 será obligatorio superar las clases A-G para graduarse de secundaria.

En las cuatro grandes secundarias del este de Los Ángeles (Garfield, Roosevelt, Wilson y Lincoln) la tasa actual promedio de graduación de secundaria es sólo del 48% aún más baja que el ya desalentador promedio de 52% de graduaciones en todo LAUSD.

Manuel Robles, un ex estudiante de Garfield, comenta que sólo descubrió que no tenía los cursos necesarios para ingresar en CSU- Los Angeles, cuando rechazaron su solicitud.

"Fue un golpe muy duro, darme cuenta que la secundaria no me había servido ni para aprender sobre los requisitos para continuar", dice Robles, quien desanimado, optó por buscar trabajo y abandonar para siempre sus estudios.

Vanesa Gavia, estudiante de Wilson, sin embargo, planea graduarse en septiembre habiendo superado satisfactoriamente los 15 cursos A-G y con la esperanza de ser admitida en Stanford o UC.

Pero reconoce que cuando ingresó en la secundaria no sabía nada de estos cursos.

"Me enteré porque me asocié con el sindicato de estudiantes y organizaciones comunitarias", dice Gavia, indicando que para muchos de sus compañeros la información consistió principalmente en un papel pegado en la puerta de la oficina de consejería. Todavía un 18% de los estudiantes de la zona este, desconoce los requisitos de los cursos A-G

Yolanda Rodríguez, residente del Este de Los Ángeles y madre de cinco hijos, enfatiza que la participación de los padres es fundamental. Ella ha tomado ya dos clases informativas sobre los cursos A-G.

"Los consejeros más efectivos son los padres", dice Rodríguez a quien le gustaría que las sesiones informativas a estudiantes y padres fueran obligatorias.

The 5th Anniversary of the A-G Resolution

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Palace Revolt in Los Angeles?

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:00:00 GMT

Antonio Villaraigosa, the handsome high-voltage mayor of Los Angeles, really comes alive when recalling his start in local politics—as a labor organizer agitating for reform inside decrepit and overcrowded schools. “I cut my teeth working for the union. I cultivated these young teachers who had come to these schools to change the world,” he said, brimming with pride.

Back in 1989, one of those teachers, Joshua Pechthalt, joined Villaraigosa for a rally downtown in Exposition Park. Pechthalt remembers his charismatic young friend pumping up the crowd. “Antonio was the master of ceremonies who had parents and teachers on their feet,” recalled Pechthalt, now vice president of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). “When we see each other, to this day, we give each other a hug.”

By 1994, the popular Villaraigosa was departing for the state capitol, rocketed into a legislative seat by grateful teachers, not to mention the union’s campaign contributions. Fellow legislators chose Villaraigosa to become the first-ever Latino Speaker. Back home in East Los Angeles, the teachers associations would spend over $1 million during his six-year tenure in Sacramento to ensure that Villaraigosa would be reelected.

“As Speaker, I was without question the number one advocate for the unions,” Villaraigosa reminisced. Teacher pay hikes sailed through the legislature. He made sure that the push to hold educators accountable for results stopped short of challenging protection of dismal teachers and stymied efforts to send strong teachers into weak schools.

Fast-forward to 2010 and Villaraigosa finds himself in the vortex of a political torrent. “I’m Public Enemy Number One within the UTLA,” he told me. In his quest to turn around the schools, the mayor has united working-class Latino parents, civil rights leaders, and big-money Democrats to challenge union leaders. “It’s been a war,” he said. “It’s a war I’m willing to wage.” After a series of bloody battles against his old union friends, including a 2007 loss in the courts, the mayor gained the upper hand last fall when the L.A. school board passed a radical reform plan that he helped to craft. Over the next few years, the district intends to hand off one-third of its 800-plus campuses to managers of charter schools, other nonprofits, and inventive district educators.

Democratic leaders have enriched the unions over the past half century, creating millions of jobs for dues-paying teachers, feeding the building trades via school construction, and granting bargaining rights to teachers in the 1970s. But union leaders, of late, find themselves on the far edge of the national debate over how to lift students and their flagging schools. Test scores have largely stalled in recent years and gaps have widened slightly, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Labor chiefs are openly miffed over President Obama’s offer of moral support and billions of federal dollars to escalate the “war” being waged by Villaraigosa and his fellow mayors. “In a place like L.A. or Detroit, where the public schools are dysfunctional,” Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told me, “I don’t think that the system can by itself go where it has to go. You have to rally all elements of the community. The person who can rally all those actors is the mayor.”

Villaraigosa is not the only city chief to take charge of urban schools. But his battle for mayoral control in Los Angeles offers a cautionary tale for all sides. It reveals new tensions between teachers union leaders and Democratic mayors. But charter school enthusiasts should not expect that close alliance, nurtured over many years, to be disrupted overnight. Politicians are highly skilled at finding a middle ground between demands for reform and protection of old connections. As much as Villaraigosa—and the school superintendent with whom he is allied—have appeared committed to rapid charter school expansion, when the L. A. school board took decisive action in February, charters were forced to settle for much less than they expected. Instead of getting the lion’s share of the schools they sought, charters were left with only four. Newly formed teacher groups won the vast majority of school contracts after they formed an alliance with UTLA. The charters were left with their tongues hanging out.

The Players

Villaraigosa returned to L.A. in 2000, eager to become the city’s first Latino mayor since 1872. His union friends contributed another $2 million in traceable dollars to his mayoral campaigns in 2001 and 2005. Leaders of the California Teachers Association even talked up Villaraigosa as California’s next photogenic governor, the Democratic heir apparent to Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

At first, the old polarities seemed to hold, pitting education groups like the UTLA against downtown developers and fiscal conservatives. Then the mayor began to echo the impatience expressed by blue-collar Latino parents, packed into graying apartments and tiny cottages spread across East Los Angeles. For decades these families saw no options other than sending their children to overcrowded, sometimes dangerous schools. Villaraigosa grew up in a broken barrio home. “My father left when I was young; we lived in abject poverty,” he recalled. His roots in Chicano politics taught him about L.A.’s racial dynamics in the 1950s, when “Mexicans” were simply kept out of predominantly white schools.

Running for mayor in 2005, after losing his first bid, Villaraigosa began talking with a variety of activists, including Maria Brenes, who runs Innercity Struggle, a group that fights for small, more rigorous high schools. She works from a modest office in the heart of East Los Angeles. A musty fragrance permeates two rooms, blending L.A.’s unrelenting heat with too many eager organizers stuffed into a small space. “Public education has been going downhill in East L.A. for some time,” Brenes said. “Schools built for 1,000 students are now at 5,000.”

Parents worry over these densely packed schools in which teachers simply lose track of kids. Alicia Ortiz, for example, made sure that her daughter escaped Garfield High School, once home to Jaime Escalante, the math teacher made famous in Stand and Deliver. “They have so many students it doesn’t matter if your student is in school or not,” Ortiz said. Her daughter now attends a charter school.

Candidate Villaraigosa also met with wealthy Democrats worried sick over the quality of the schools, like developer and philanthropist Eli Broad. “In L.A. there is no one responsible for the schools,” Broad said. “The board is made up of political wannabes. The only time we have seen dramatic change in urban education is when you have mayoral control.”

Initial evidence backs Broad’s claim. After tracking progress in a dozen cities where mayors have grabbed the tiller—including Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.—Brown University professor Kenneth Wong concluded that students benefit significantly. Reading performance in these cities’ high schools climbed by one-third of a standard deviation when compared with urban districts serving similar kids, on par with the impact of providing quality preschools. City residents also reported feeling better about their local schools, a key win for municipal leaders eager to stem white flight and shrinking property values, as Wong detailed.

Broad’s collateral assault on the downtown school bureaucracy includes growing new charter schools and attracting strong principals who gain unfettered authority to hire and fire their own teachers. L.A.’s activists are further bolstered by a statewide charter lobby that’s picked up considerable clout in recent years, capitalized by Broad, Netflix founder Reed Hastings, and most recently Bill Gates. Villaraigosa soon came to see charters as a lever for organizational innovation, since “parents are hungry for change,” he said. And these well-heeled Democratic donors, for now, offset declining campaign support from the unions.

The Setting

Villaraigosa’s predecessor, James Hahn, did little to challenge the pace of change inside the L.A. Unified School District. Roy Romer, the former Colorado governor and head of the Democratic National Committee, came to L.A. as superintendent in 2001. He pushed to award principals more discretion over budgets and the power to assemble strong teams of teachers, reforms largely thwarted by the UTLA. Romer standardized the curriculum and required teachers to follow weekly timetables. Student scores inched upward on Romer’s watch. Still, less than one-sixth of L.A. 8th graders now read and write proficiently, according to federal assessments.

After winning the mayor’s race in 2005, Villaraigosa wasn’t about to accept this glacial pace of progress. Catching his union benefactors off guard, he soon announced his intention to take control of the far-flung L.A. school system, citing strides made by Mayor Richard M. Daley in Chicago and Michael Bloomberg in New York. “We have got to move away from a model where school boards are defenders of a failed status quo, where the unions just control the board,” Villaraigosa said.

But wresting control of the schools from Romer and loyal board members required that Villaraigosa return to Sacramento to win legislative approval. Unlike other states, California sets the powers of local school boards in the state constitution. Villaraigosa had to negotiate with statewide teacher groups since they continue to sway Democratic legislators through old alliances and rich campaign contributions.

UTLA president A. J. Duffy sensed an opening, negotiating with Villaraigosa to grant teachers greater control over curriculum and pedagogical practices. In return, the unions would endorse the mayor’s plan. The surreal and controversial power-sharing deal that emerged in Sacramento resembled governance of the Palestinian territories (see “Power Struggle in Los Angeles,” forum, Summer 2007). And the school board, which the UTLA could often dominate, would have lost most of its authority. The union’s conservative wing came unglued, forcing a vote on Duffy’s deal with the mayor, which the rank and file soundly rejected.

The Plot

The notion that anyone might take command of the sprawling L.A. Unified’s 885 schools, even a mayor with boundless energy, feels like a Disney movie, an ever-hopeful fiction. The district spreads across 710 square miles, half the size of Delaware, and serves more than 688,000 students. The system hosts the nation’s single largest public-works program, a $27 billion effort to build more than 130 new schools and renovate countless others. It employs over 36,700 classroom teachers and, curiously, an equal number of managers and support staff.

Back in Sacramento, Villaraigosa emerged victorious. The legislature passed the mayoral-control plan, and Governor Schwarzenegger signed the deal in the summer of 2006. But Romer fought back in the courts, winning on appeal in spring 2007. So, the unstoppable mayor simply pivoted and went with Plan B. “We also had a Plan C,” Villaraigosa joked, reviewing his battles against the union. “We would go to the end of the alphabet if necessary.”

Villaraigosa outflanked Romer, rallying support for three challengers to incumbent members of the school board who had sided with the schools chief during the prolonged legal battle. “I raised millions, defeated the union candidates, and we won a majority of the board,” the mayor recalled. Three million to be exact, coming mostly from wealthy Democratic donors. Among the mayor’s allies, newly elected to the school board, was another rising L.A. star, Yolie Flores.

Petite in stature, soft-spoken in style, Flores seemed an unlikely dragon slayer. Yet she had already proven to be a Latina Saul Alinsky of sorts, organizing parents around the issues of scarce child care and unsafe schools. She arrived on the board impatient and eager to ramp up reform efforts. “The community has reached a level of exasperation, of ongoing failure (in the schools),” she told me. Little love was lost between Flores and the UTLA. During her campaign, she opposed a moratorium on opening new charter schools. In turn, the union refused to endorse her candidacy. Still, no one predicted that she would lead a palace revolt.

Flores’s idea to push charter expansion and parental choice took shape by early 2009. Sessions with advocates included well-connected operators like Ben Austin, first a deputy to Republican mayor of Los Angeles Richard Riordon, then a political aide to film director Rob Reiner. Austin is a hard-driving politico from the affluent west side of L.A., and now the unlikely head of Parent Revolution, a mostly Latina advocacy group led by the Los Angeles Parents Union and bankrolled by Broad and charter proponents. He argued that newly built campuses would provide the affordable facilities that charter firms required to expand. Flores also found on her desk a UCLA study of dropout rates, revealing that fully two-thirds of students entering the high schools in her area, including Garfield High, never graduate. Flores felt like the only sane person in an asylum, “walking around not knowing whether to cry or scream. In the district office there was a very casual sense of the crisis,” she said.

By early summer, Villaraigosa felt that he could swing his school board to support Flores’s dramatic proposal. He also received an unexpected dose of capital to advance the plan from Hollywood mogul Casey Wasserman, who donated $4.5 million to the district’s own reform office. For Villaraigosa, charters were just one piece of the puzzle. Along with the new schools chief, Ray Cortines, the mayor sought to integrate Flores’s charter plan with his own “partnership schools” and Cortines’s commitment to “pilot schools” and thin labor contracts. Together, these experiments were to extend decentralized management and dollars to hundreds of L.A. schools (see sidebar).

One Democratic donor told me, not for attribution, “This is an all-out war that needs to be attacked from every angle. Charters are a piece of the puzzle, but not the only, nor the largest, piece.” With about 55,000 kids enrolled in L.A. charter schools, “you don’t solve the problem through 10 percent of the kids.”

Tensions were intensifying between Latino leaders and the UTLA by early in the summer of 2009. As Flores walked into the cramped auditorium at Annendale Elementary School for a meeting, she suddenly deciphered the shrill chanting of neatly dressed 2nd graders. “Shame on you, shame on you,” they cried out with quizzical faces, miffed by their own angry words. “I was shocked, I couldn’t believe it,” Flores recalled. She had voted for necessary budget cuts as the recession deepened, and her reform ideas had surfaced. Now union activists had wound up these children to deliver their barbed message. Villaraigosa parried back, calling Duffy and company “the most backward labor union in the nation. We’re not going to be held hostage by a small group of people,” a thinly veiled reference to UTLA leaders.

By mid-summer, Flores and Villaraigosa were ready to hatch their charter-and-choice initiative, at first urging the school board to hand off 50 recently opened campuses to charter firms and nonprofit reform groups. Then, a second board ally pushed the mayor to include a total of 251 low-performing schools within the proposal. If the mayor could deliver his new majority on the board—the vote was set for late August—more than one-third of L.A.’s schools would eventually compete in a marketplace unprecedented in scope. UTLA leaders, not surprisingly, went ballistic.

Building on Prior Reforms

The Los Angeles charter-and-choice effort has attracted plenty of national attention, in part because its foundations resemble those of President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative. But L.A. has over the past two decades built ambitious programs to decentralize school management and widen options for parents.

In partnership with nonprofit groups and local universities, the mayor’s office runs five iDesign schools (also dubbed partnership schools). The mayor’s consolation prize after he lost his bid to take over the entire system, these schools operate under “a more localized decision-making authority as a strategy to improve student achievement,” according to Superintendent Ray Cortines’s 15-page guide to school options.

The district’s pilot schools, similar to those in Boston, are a key part of the L.A. school board’s own experiment with semi-autonomous schools. Cortines struck a deal with the union to expand their number from 10 to 30, beginning in the fall of 2010. These typically small schools operate under thin labor contracts, giving principals more authority over the hiring and firing of teachers and awarding teachers a wider range of flexible roles. Some teacher groups, opposed to charter school expansion, submitted bids to take over eligible choice campuses as pilot schools.

Magnet schools are mission-driven organizations with specialized curricula, similar to magnets in other cities, and aim to lessen racial segregation among schools. L.A. currently operates 15 magnet schools and 173 magnet programs, many hosted by conventional public schools. Competition is fierce to win a magnet slot, as less than one-fifth of applicants gain admission.

Charter schools number 161 in L.A., more than operate in any other district nationwide. Still, they serve less than one-tenth of the district’s students.

The Mayor Wins a Round

To bolster their stance, union leaders highlighted their recent support of certain innovations, including expanding Cortines’s experiment with decentralized pilot schools, operating under flexible labor contracts and granting principals greater authority. But the union reluctantly endorsed this model, “because teachers are demanding them,” said Brian Fritch, a Garfield High history teacher and union insurgent. Fritch’s generation of teachers has few historical roots with the labor movement, yet they speak of social justice and daily serve kids from working-class families. He has spoken out publicly against the UTLA’s habits of protecting lousy teachers and resisting greater power for reform-minded principals.

UTLA leaders, including the mayor’s old friend, Joshua Pechthalt, worry that new Democrats, like Flores, Villaraigosa, and even President Obama, are “looking to have one teacher competing against another, one school against another.” Market values and monetary incentives are displacing a cooperative spirit, Pechthalt argued. “Our satisfaction (as teachers) comes when you look around and say, ‘the students got it,’ and you have connected with the kids.”

But Villaraigosa is not one to mull over competing political theories. The week before the crucial board vote on the charters-and-choice proposal, he convened a press conference, surrounded by six civil-rights leaders who endorsed Flores’s radical plan. Tom Saenz, national head of the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, talked of “parents whose kids are victims of poor schools. There’s a level of impatience because of repeated reforms that have not provided the dramatic change on the quick timeline that the community expects.” Or, as one East L.A. parent, Maria Leon, told me, “We need more options.” Each charter school “takes only 400 students, and there’s a very long waiting list.”

The new school year was just getting under way as the board convened to vote on Flores’s proposal. At sunup that morning last August, a line of buses snaked around the 28-floor tower that houses the city schools office. Out came 3,000 mostly Latino parents sporting bright yellow and powder blue T-shirts that read, “My Child, My Choice.” Villaraigosa arrived to stir the already animated crowd. “We are here to stand up for our children,” the mayor shouted, beneath a banner that proclaimed, “Parent Revolution.”

Inside, UTLA’s Duffy, appearing before the board, was berating Flores. “When all is said and done, you will have sold this district down the road for political gain and for a mayor whose own program has been a dismal failure,” he said. But once again, Duffy had overplayed his hand. The board voted 6–1 to approve the reform plan. Los Angeles would now host “the most important charter-school reform market in the country,” said Jed Wallace, head of California’s charter lobby.

The Twist

It didn’t turn out quite that way. For the school year beginning in the fall of 2010, 36 schools on 30 campuses were eligible for takeover, including 12 so-called focus schools with lifeless achievement trends, along with 24 newly opened schools. When the takeover plans were tallied in January, far more had arrived from local district managers and teachers than from charter operators (see Figure 1). The schools attracted more than 80 bids in total, about half coming from within the district, including area superintendents, teacher confederations only sometimes involving union activists, and the mayor’s own partnership school organization. Charter firms, including Aspire, Green Dot, Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, and smaller charter operators, put forward one-quarter of the takeover plans, but only one plan was aimed at turning around a chronically low-performing focus school. The Los Angeles Times editorial board blasted the charter firms, questioning their commitment to equity. Independent nonprofits submitted the remainder of the proposals.

Few predicted that renegade teachers and grassroots activists would out-bid the established charter firms. The L.A. school board’s decision to hand off potentially hundreds of schools had been powered largely by charter school advocates who had won over Flores and Villaraigosa. But now upstart teachers had joined in common cause with neighborhood activists, arguing that even popular charter firms were “outsiders.”

Cortines formed an independent panel to review the bids. By February, Villaraigosa’s majority on the school board began to unravel. The neutral panel recommended a balanced mix of charter firms, nonprofits, and district educators to take over the 36 schools. But after joining forces with charter comrades to pass the public school choice legislation, neighborhood activists and teachers now split off to fight the charter awards, alleging that charter firms were too imperial and noting fresh statistics that special education students were underrepresented in the charter sector. Over the mayor’s and Flores’s vocal objections, the board awarded just four schools to charter organizations.

Devil’s in the Details

Despite the charter lobby’s reversal of fortune, L.A. Unified has become “a network of schools,” as Claremont Graduate University professor Charles Kerchner points out. Even before Villaraigosa pushed through public school choice, the district watched over 15 magnet schools with long waiting lists, and Cortines’s pilot campuses were showing promising results, at least in terms of decentralizing school management. The 161 charter schools operating within the district’s boundaries ranged from fragile mom-and-pop organizations to those run by franchise firms like the Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools and the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP). The Gates Foundation has begun funneling $60 million to these big charter players, hoping to boost teacher effectiveness through incentives and training efforts. L.A. may yet become the poster child for Secretary Duncan’s $4.3 billion Race to the Top initiative.

New questions continue to surface from the twists and turns of the L.A. story. How rapidly and responsibly can L.A. Unified hand off as many as 251 schools to charter firms, nonprofits, and breakaway teachers? Will a robust count of charismatic innovators surface in Los Angeles to take over complicated urban schools? “No. 251 schools, no,” says charter advocate Wallace. “Most of our organizations are going to be up for taking on one or two schools every other year.” This capacity constraint allowed local nonprofits and teacher confederations to compete against charter firms.

The nerve-wracking work of handing off schools began on cue. Matt Hill is Cortines’s top aide for crafting the emerging confederation. A total of 219 letters of intent were initially submitted. “It’s more than I anticipated in the first year,” Hill said. “As far as a jolt to the system, it has been a great process.” Yet the major charter firms moved prudently, each bidding on just one or two schools, and favoring the spanking-new campuses rather than attempting to turn around chronically ailing schools.

Teacher groups went after and won most of the schools, with some opting for the pilot model, embracing the idea of autonomy with all the trappings, “except a thin labor contract,” Hill said. This model, in which principals are no longer hog-tied by elaborate bureaucratic or confining union rules, proved attractive to teachers eager to take over campuses, but who equate charters with privatization of school management. And the UTLA much prefers flexible labor contracts under the pilot model to charter agreements that freeze out the union.

Parents are confused over their options. “It was so rushed (in this first year) parents didn’t really understand what was going on,” Hill said. “Empowerment is a relationship,” as UCLA law professor Joel F. Handler remarked.

And the story is far from over. The UTLA filed suit in December to block the mayor’s entire charter-and-choice program, even as the union helped some teachers to develop school bids. Soon Villaraigosa will be back in court, once again battling his old friends.

The Roots of Reform

Back in 1989, Bill Clinton and his fellow governors first pushed labor to swallow more demanding learning standards and stiff accountability measures, betting this would renew voters’ confidence in the schools. The patient responded with strong vital signs for a time, as test scores climbed in the 1990s and achievement gaps narrowed. Now President Obama is upping the ante, spurring local activists to shake up, even break up, downtown school bureaucracies. “Charters…force the kind of experimentation and innovation that helps to drive excellence in every other aspect of life,” the president told the Washington Post. His Race to the Top fund sends dollars to states that have lifted caps on charters, offering aid and comfort to urban agitators like Villaraigosa. “The president is demanding innovation, and there are funds out there,” as L.A.’s Brenes put it.

Still, Washington’s feeding of new charters may fail to lift students until quality climbs. Warm results arrived this past winter in New York City from Stanford University economist Caroline Hoxby, who detailed how students winning slots via lotteries in over-subscribed charters out-performed applicants who remained in regular public schools. Secretary Duncan, up to speed on the national evidence, told me, “I am not for charters. I’m a fan of good charters. Second- and third-rate charters should be closed down.” But will Washington nudge states to prune lifeless charter schools after pushing for a major expansion?

Still, the political realignment seen in L.A. narrows the choices available to union leaders: either navigate these treacherous waters more mindfully, or get swept away downstream. “My style is never about being in your face,” Duncan said. “[But] do the unions have to move? Absolutely. We all have to get outside our comfort zones.”

One unforeseen lesson for Duncan from L.A. is that high-quality charter firms can expand only so quickly. And once the neighborhood-control genie is out of the lamp, managing democratic impulses is difficult, no matter how disciplined the charter lobby. After pushing the school board to cut out several charter bids and go for pilot schools instead, Brenes explained, “Some of our best teachers rolled-up their sleeves and developed quality plans.” As for the charter schools? “A lot of folks out there were just not grounded in the community, [they] underestimated our organizing capacity in East L.A.”

When the school board finally turned 36 schools over to new management, only four were awarded to charter school operators. Most of the remaining schools were allocated to the newly formed teacher groups who had greatly strengthened their political position by siding with UTLA against the charters. “We knew from the beginning there was a lot of push back from the unions,” said Yolie Flores, one of the two board members who opposed the decision. But Steve Zimmer, one of the members who voted with the majority, said the board had found an appropriate compromise. “There was a lot of pressure from UTLA not to vote for a single charter,” he explained.

Of course, the mayor was furious over losing his earlier majority on the board. “We have accountability in our schools, and high-quality charter schools hold themselves to these standards,” Villaraigosa said in a statement. “Choosing more of the same reinforces the status quo.”

The lesson for Villaraigosa, and fellow mayors committed to charter schools that have shown results, is to remain steadily engaged and forceful politically. When Villaraigosa lost focus, then assumed his board majority would hold tight, reputable charter organizations lost out.

All sides will be back next year for another round of takeover bids. And union leaders may warm up to decentralizing management, even with more flexible labor contracts, especially if they can win control of pilot and autonomous schools by uniting with Latino neighborhood activists.

The UTLA’s sudden enthusiasm for innovative school management is breathtaking, and largely the work of a young generation of impatient members. Fritch, after helping to win a pilot school with Brenes, put it simply, “We need to become a more progressive union, or we’re going to be a done union.”

Bruce Fuller is professor of education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. His recent book is Standardized Childhood (Stanford University Press).

Claire Anderson provided invaluable research assistance.

An Accurate Count Will Benefit Your Neighborhood, School and Family

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:00:00 GMT

April 1^st officially marks Census Day and communities such as East Los Angeles are faced with one of the most important duties confronted by similarly under-resourced communities: to encourage as many people as possible to fill out and mail their Census form. The Census Count is used as a mechanism to ensure there is an accurate population count to determine the quantity of federal funds a community receives for public services and resources. For the greater Eastside, it is critical that we participate since our communities were designated as Hard to Count areas due to the significant percentage of residents that did not participate in the Census Count ten years ago.

In the 2000 Census count, unincorporated East Los Angeles was considered the 2^nd hardest to count area in the nation. This undercount resulted in the loss of millions of dollars in funds for public services that could have benefited a broader scope of people in our community.

The greater Eastside is experiencing major changes economically, socially and educationally. Just take a look at our new rail line, the new library, the new schools that are being constructed and other development projects. The recent approval of five Pilot Schools at the soon to be opened Esteban E. Torres High School in East Los Angeles highlights the need for all funding sources in order to improve graduation and college-going rates in a district where the average graduation rate is 52%. Pilot Schools are small theme-based schools with personalized instruction and increased autonomies in budget, curriculum, and professional development with the aim of providing a quality education for Eastside students. If we fail to participate in the Census Count we face loosing major funding opportunities that will enable us to continue improvement projects such as the one’s described above.

“I’ve informed my family and encouraged them to fill out the Census form, but more importantly, I’ve walked in the community door-to-door to inform my neighbors about the Census and the benefits in being counted,” said Nelly Cortez a senior at Garfield High School and a youth member of InnerCity Struggle.

Our community must understand the importance of having a complete count – due to the undercount in 2000, the city of Los Angeles alone lost over $200 million in federal funds to support public services that would have directly benefited our community. For the greater Eastside, it is imperative that we be counted and decrease the impact faced by an unyielding financial crisis as seen with continued cuts to services and loss of jobs in the public sector.

“Our community has grown in the past ten years and if we are not counted then we face losing funds that will go directly to not only improving streets but to improving our schools,” said Yolanda Rodriguez, mother of students attending schools in East Los Angeles.

In a period of financial difficulty, a complete Census Count is even more critical in ensuring our communities and families receive much needed funds for public service programs.

Our communities have to be leaders in informing their neighbors about the importance of the Census Count, helping them fill out the form and ensuring they mail it. Some may be frightened, others may be discouraged with the role of government and a few perhaps are apathetic to participating in the process, but we must emphasize the importance of everyone’s role to ensure an accurate Count that will benefit everyone in the community for the next 10 years!

Maria Brenes is the Executive Director of InnerCity Struggle a non-profit organization that organizes parents and students to improve the quality of education on the Eastside.

Altas Expectativas para Escuelas Piloto en Nueva Preparatoria Torres

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:00 GMT

Después de dos años de organizar la base local y crear consciencia sobre el modelo de Escuelas Piloto, InnerCity Struggle y el East Los Angeles Education Collaborative-que están compuestos de organizaciones con base comunitaria, líderes civiles, padres y estudiantes-podrían aún estar celebrando hoy la victoria que fue la decisión por la Mesa Directiva de LAUSD en aprobar que cinco escuelas piloto, en vez de solo tres como el Superintendente Ramón Cortines había recomendado.

En preparación para el voto decisivo de la Mesa Directiva Escolar, InnerCity Struggle en colaboración con el jubilado Congresista Esteban E. Torres, con Los Angeles Education Partnership y con líderes comunitarios de la zona, el 18 de Febrero se reunieron frente la Biblioteca Pública del Este de Los Ángeles para apoyar las propuestas para cinco escuelas piloto. Foto cortesía de InnerCity Struggle

El jubilado Congresista Esteban E. Torres, en cuyo honor la nueva escuela del Este de Los Ángeles fue nombrada, dijo a EGP el miércoles que él estaba animado por el resultado del voto, que se cumplió el martes, y atribuyo la victoria a la acción de la comunidad.

"Me he reunido con maestros, padres y estudiantes sobre el curso de los últimos meses y les doy crédito al buen trabajo de InnerCity Struggle, el East Los Angeles Education Collaborative, Students United, y los maestros por sus tremendos esfuerzos en las urnas hace dos semanas," dijo Torres. "Ellos hicieron que sus voces sean escuchadas hasta la Mesa Directiva, y dijeron que están listos para cambio en las escuelas del Este de Los Ángeles."

María Brenes, la directora ejecutiva de InnerCity Struggle, dijo a EGP que a pesar que están felices que bajo el liderazgo de la Presidente Mónica García, la mayoría de la Mesa Directiva dio su apoyo para tomar la reforma educacional a otro nivel, la batalla apenas comienza.

"Ahora el verdadero trabajo comienza, tenemos expectativas altas para estas cinco escuelas," dijo Brenes. "Y nosotros estaremos allí para monitorear, para asegurarnos que la escuela será la mejor en el Este de Los Ángeles, la mejor en el distrito."

Mientras que padres, estudiantes y la comunidad apoyaron las propuestas de piloto, ellos también serán responsables por el rendimiento escolar en Torres, una junta comunitaria en el futuro se dirigirá al tema, dijo Brenes.

High Expectations for New Esteban Torres High School Pilots

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:00 GMT

After two-years of grassroots organizing to create awareness and gather support for the Pilot School model, InnerCity Struggle and the East Los Angeles Education Collaborative-comprised of community-based organizations, civic leaders, parents and students-are likely still celebrating their victory Tuesday when the LAUSD School Board voted to approve all five pilots school applications for the new Esteban Torres High School, rather then just the three and two charter schools recommended by the district's superintendent.

In preparation for the Public School Choice decision day, InnerCity Struggle in collaboration with retired U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres, the Los Angeles Education Partnership and East Los Angeles community leaders, gathered at the East LA Library to support the five pilot schools proposed. Former U.S. Rep. Esteban E. Torres, whose is the namesake of the high school, told EGP on Wednesday he was very encouraged by the outcome of the school board's vote and believed it was due to community action.

"I have met with teachers, parents and students over the course of the last several months, and I credit the good work of InnerCity Struggle, the East LA Education Collaborative, United Students, and the teachers for their tremendous effort in the balloting polls that took place a couple of weeks ago," Torres said. "They let their voices be heard. They told the Board they are ready for change in East LA Schools."

Maria Brenes, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, told EGP that while they are very excited that under School Board President Monica Garcia's leadership the rest of the school board granted East LA the opportunity to take in-district reform to a different level, the fight to improve eastside education has just begun.

"Now the real work begins, we expect a lot from these five schools," Brenes said. "And we will be there to monitor, make sure that we create one of the best high schools in all of East LA, in all the district."
Brenes said that in promoting the pilot model, they were simultaneously trying to get the Board to understand that the eastside has "quality, experienced teachers." Through their cooperation, the soon-to-be pilot-school teachers at Torres High agreed to work under different terms in their contracts, she said.

While parents, students and the community supported the pilot proposals, they will also be held accountable for the academic achievement at Torres; a community meeting will be coordinated sometime in the future to address this topic, Brenes said.

Based on the "Belmont Zone of Choice" in the Pico-Union area, the education activists aimed to create the "East Los Angeles Education Empowerment Zones of Choice," along with Garfield High School, Despite Garfield's focus team being ordered to revise their proposal by the end of March, undergo monitoring and reconsideration of its authority coming in three years, instead of five, East LA parents, students, faculty, and community members through the advisory vote have demonstrated overwhelming support for teachers at eastside schools and confidence in student academic potential.